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THE PAYNE TARIFF TAX BILL 



The consumers of our country are as heavily burdened at present 
by protection as the people of France were oppressed by taxation before 
the revolution, and the only hope of relief lies in the downfall of the 
Republican party. 

I am unalterably opposed to putting any more burdens on the poor 
man's breakfast table. If additional revenues are necessary to pro- 
mote the general welfare of the Government, I want to raise,' in so far 
as possible, these additional revenues by taxing idle wealth and not 
honest poverty. Let us make wealth as well as toil pay its just share 
of the expenses of the Government. We must tax wealth and not 
poverty. We should legislate for all the people and not for the greedy 
few. 



SPEECH 



OF 



HOK WILLIAM SULZER^ 



OF NEW YORK 



IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 



WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1909 



* 



TV A.SHINGTON 
1909 



79750-8200 



SPEECH 



OF 



HON. WILLIAM SULZER, 



The House being in Committee of the Whole House on the state of the 
Union and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 1438) to provide 
revenue, equalize duties, and encourage the industries of the United 
States, and for otber purposes — 

Mr. SULZER said: ■ 

Mr. Chairman : In discussing the Payne tariff tax bill now un- 
der consideration, I meet the subject impartially, with an open 
mind, and without political prejudice. What I shall say in the 
matter is based on much study, careful observation, and sincere 
conviction. I have no ax to grind, no corporate taskmasters to 
serve. I represent no interests on the floor of the House of 
Representatives but the people's interests. I am for the great- 
est good to the greatest number ; I speak for the plain people 
of the land, for the wage-earners, for the producers, and for the 
consumers of our country. These good people have no lobby 
here, but they are sorely in need, it seems to me, at this critical 
time, of friends and advocates in Congress. They are the people 
who pay the taxes, and they have, some rights, in my opinion, 
that the Congress should protect and safeguard in framing the 
tax laws of the country. 

The honest folk of my district ask for no special legislation ; 
they seek no governmental aid ; they invoke the infliction of no 
tyrannical tax at the expense of all the other people of the land. 
They demand equal rights to all and the same opportunities for 
all. They insist on impartial justice to all the people in every 
section of the country in all national legislation, especially when 
it comes to that most important of all law making — tariff 
taxation. 

Sir, I am proud of my constituency. I shall always fight for 
their rights. I glory in the fact that the people of the district 
I have the honor to represent on the floor of the Congress of 
the United Slates believe in equal rights to all and special 
privileges to none. I stand on that platform, and in Congress 
or out of Congress I shall always strive to do my best to live 
up to that fundamental principle, which, in my opinion, is the 
abiding hope of America ; and always was, and I trust ever will 
be, the star of inspiration of the greatest and the grandest 
people recorded in all the glorious annals of time. [Applause.] 

Mr. Chairman, the Ways and Means Committee has been in 
session for many months endeavoring to frame a new tariff 
tax law. Its members, we are told, have labored most indus- 
triously, but what have they brought forth? Like the mountain 
in the fable, it seems to me, the Ways and Means Committee 
has labored and brought forth a mouse in the shape of the 
Payne bill — a miserable makeshift and the merest apology for 
real tariff reform. There is not a line in the Payne tax bill 
2 79750—8200 



D» © ! 



to 

that will give relief to the overburdened taxpayers of the 
country. There is not a schedule in all the voluminous meas- 
ure that will give hope for a reduction of taxes on the neces- 
saries of life to the oppressed consumers of the land. It is 
true, however, that here and there a slight reduction is made in 
the tariff taxes on certain trust-made articles, but wherever 
a reduction has been made in any schedule the tax is left suffi- 
ciently high to afford ample protection to the special interests, 
and in most cases the tax is still prohibitive. So that the 
Government will receive no more revenue by reason of the fact 
that certain schedules in the present law have been slightly 
reduced in the Payne bill. 

As a matter of fact, the Payne bill imposes additional 
taxes on the necessaries of life to a greater extent than 
any tariff bill every submitted to Congress. I have made 
a careful comparison between the schedules of the Dingley 
law. now on the statute books, and the Payne bill, now under 
consideration, and in my opinion the present tax law, bad as 
we know it to be, is much better for the people of the country, 
take it all in all, than the bill now before the House would be 
if it were enacted into law in its present shape. In the face 
of the contrast no friend of the people can consistently support 
this measure. Its injustice to the consumers of the land will 
be its own undoing. There is no agitator so successful as in- 
justice, and the bill now under consideration is the most un- 
just and the most vicious tax bill in all our history, and if it 
became a law just as it is, the people all over the country would 
promptly demand its repeal. [Applause on the Democratic 
side.] 

Sir, the debate thus far in this House on the Payne tax bill has 
impressed me with the farsighted wisdom of the. observation of 
a former Democratic candidate for the Presidency — that the 
tariff is a local issue. This is essentially true so far as the 
selfish beneficiaries of the tariff are concerned. But in a larger 
sense this is not so, for the reason that in the last analysis 
the tariff affects all the people, and the people in the end pay 
all the tariff taxes, regardless of the profits and the advantages 
to the beneficiaries. 

After all, tariff taxation is largely a question of whose ox is 
gored. What a spectacle is witnessed here in the construction 
of this tariff bill ! From one end of the country to the other we 
hear the insistent demand of the selfish beneficiaries of protec- 
tion clamoring for more protection. They are never satisfied. 
Like the horse leech, they never get enough. If the greedy 
beneficiaries of the protective tariff could have their way the 
tariff taxes would be practically prohibitive, and the Govern- 
ment then would derive little, if any, revenue from tariff taxa- 
tion. We can make the tariff rates so high that there will be 
no importations, and then no revenue will flow into the Treasury 
of the Government. That seems to be the policy to-day of the 
Republican leaders in the House, so far, at least, as many 
schedules in the Payne bill are concerned. 

Mr. Chairman, we know to-day, beyond all contention, that 
the tariff is a tax ; and, beyond all dispute, that the consumers 
pay the taxes. The most hidebound standpatter dare not now 
dispute this proposition. Ultimately all the burdens of pro- 
tective taxation fall upon the consumers of the country. Protec- 
79750—8200 



tion for protection's sake is a system of indirect taxation which 
robs the many for the benefit of the few — a policy which levies 
tribute on the masses for the classes. No party that stands for 
the best interests of all the people can support it, especially 
where it fosters trusts, shelters monopolies, and saddles the 
great burdens of government on the farmer, and the toiler, and 
the wage-earner of the country. Protection for protection is 
robbery — undemocratic, un-American, unconstitutional, and ab- 
solutely indefensible. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 

The Republicans told us last fall that they would revise the 
tariff schedules of the Dingley law downwards; that they would 
reduce the tariff taxes; but the Payne bill does not do it. On 
the contrary it increases taxation and is a revision upwards. 
The Payne bill demonstrates the hollowness of Republican prom- 
ises when it comes to tariff-tax reductions on the necessaries 
of life. 

The people of the country were promised by the Republicans 
in the last campaign that if they .were returned to the control 
of the Government they would revise the tariff taxes in a spirit 
of justice to all; that they would reduce the tariff taxes on the 
necessaries of life in order to lighten the burdens of the con- 
sumers and cheapen the cost of living ; but the Republicans in 
this House have not done so. On the contrary the Payne bill 
increases the taxes on the necessaries of life all along the line, 
and is worse in many respects than the present Dingley law. 
Most of the schedules in the Payne bill are higher than the 
schedules in the Dingley law. 

I assert without fear of successful contradiction that the 
Payne bill in its present shape will grant no relief to the over- 
burdened taxpayers of the country — and no hope to the op- 
pressed consumers of the land. It is the highest tax measure 
on the necessaries of life ever submitted to Congress. If I 
thought for one moment that the Payne bill in its present shape 
could become a law I would despair of ever getting relief for 
the ninety millions of consumers of our country ; but I know 
from long experience in the House of Representatives that there 
is no more chance for the bill under consideration to become a 
law in its present shape than there is for the stalwart chairman 
of the Ways and Means Committee to be translated to another 
world like Elijah of old. [Laughter and applause.] 

The truth of the matter is that sooner or later the Payne bill 
will pass the House in some shape; it will then go to the Sen- 
ate ; it will be debated and amended there for a month or more ; 
it will then be passed by the Senate ; and when it comes back 
from the Senate the Republican leaders in the House will not 
be able to recognize it. Then it will go to conference, and the 
conferees of the two Houses will finally write the tariff taxes 
the people must pay ; and the bill will then be passed and sent 
to the President under the whip of the party caucus, and, by 
the spur of a special rule, with practically a solid Republican 
party vote. 

That is the way the next tax law will be made. The Senate 
Finance Committee is holding meetings and writing a new bill 
now. A few select Republican Senators, with the aid of emi- 
nent trust lawyers, are busy at present preparing an entirely 
new bill, and it will be ready to be substituted in the Senate 
for the House bill just as soon as the House bill gets to the 

79750—8200 



Senate. What the bill will be like when it ultimately goes to 
the President for his approval or disapproval is beyond the 
prophetic wisdom of the finite mind. But, good or bad, when it 
is finally written on the statute books,' it will be a Republican 
law, and the people will hold the Republican party responsible 
for its enactment. 

Mr. Chairman, I am absolutely opposed to the Payne tariff 
tax bill. It is an imposition on the people. It is a mockery and 
a sham. It is legalized robbery. It is the highest protection 
measure ever introduced in Congress. It increases the taxes on 
every necessary of life. It saddles additional burdens on the 
oppressed taxpayers of the land beyond the calculation of the 
human intellect. It is against the people and for the trusts 
and in the interests of the monopolies. It protects idle wealth, 
and heaps high the burdens of Government on the poor man's 
breakfast table. It discriminates against the many for the 
benefit of the few, and violates every principle of equality, and 
of justice, and of democracy. It is a revision of the tariif 
taxes upward and not downward. It repudiates the platform 
of the Republican party. It scorns the promises and laughs at 
the professions made by President Taft to the people in the last 
campaign. It is a protection measure from end to end. It is 
for the trusts, and the trusts are for it. No monopoly in the 
country is opposed to it. No standpatter repudiates it. The 
measure is quite satisfactory to every interest but the interest 
of the plain people who must pay all the taxes in the long run. 
It is a bill to tax poverty and not wealth, and if it ever becomes 
a law in its present shape it will be the saddest disappointment 
of the century to the American people. The people have asked 
for bread ; the Republicans now give them a stone. 

Mr. Chairman, I was in great hopes that the Payne bill would 
meet the anxious expectations of the taxpayers of our country. 
I had indulged the hallucination that the Republican leaders in 
Congress would rise to the occasion, keep their promises, and 
give the people of the country a genuine revenue reform law 
that would do substantial justice to the consumers, to the wage- 
earners, and to all interests concerned. I expected to see idle 
wealth, as well as honest toil, compelled to pay its just share 
of the burdens of government. To-day idle wealth practically 
escapes taxation, and it receives more governmental protection 
than any other single thing in all the land. At present idle 
wealth contributes practically nothing to the support of the Gov- 
ernment, while honest toil contributes far more than its just 
share. [Applause.] 

The Payne bill is unjust in its discrimination against the toil- 
ers; it is unfair in its impositions on the producers; and it is 
unconscionable in its tyranny to the consumers of the country. 

After making a most careful comparison of the schedules con- 
tained in the iniquitous measure now before the House, known 
as the " Payne bill," with those on the statute book, known as 
the " Dingley law," I say, and I defy successful contradiction, 
that so far as the consumers and the taxpayers of the land are 
concerned this Payne bill is infinitely worse, and a great deal 
more detrimental, than the present Dingley law. In other words, 
the Payne measure increases the taxes on the necessaries of life 
all along the line, and I am unalterably opposed to putting any 
more burdens on the poor man's breakfast table. If additional 
79750—8200 



6 

revenues are necessary to promote the general welfare of the 
Government I want to raise, in so far as possible, these addi- 
tional revenues by taxing idle wealth and not honest poverty. 
Let us make wealth as well as toil pay its just share of the 
expenses of the Government. "We must tax wealth and not 
poverty. We should legislate for all the people and not for the 
greedy few. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 

Sir, it was with much satisfaction that I listened last year to 
the promises of the Republicans that they would frame a new 
tariff tax bill to materially reduce the burdens of the ordinary 
householder, but they have not done so, and I confess I am 
greatly disappointed. The Payne bill is a shallow pretense. I 
had indulged the hope that these reductions would be accom- 
plished by writing in the bill a provision for a graduated 
income tax and a graduated inheritance tax. I am in favor of 
this kind of a tax. There is no doubt in my mind that such a 
tax can be enacted into law along constitutional lines and to 
meet the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. A 
graduated income tax is the fairest and most equitable tax in 
all the world, and nearly every civilized country on earth de- 
rives most of its revenue from a system of taxation on incomes. 
[Applause on the Democratic side.] 

Mr. Chairman, the Payne bill is a bill for class taxation in 
the most inequitable form. " There is no tyranny," says Gold- 
win Smith, in his Study of History, " so constant, so searching, 
so hopeless; no tyranny which so surely makes the people its 
victims, as class taxation." The Payne bill is class taxation 
run mad. It is against the many, and all for the few. It 
is the most vicious tax bill ever considered in America. I can 
not bring myself to believe that the Payne tax bill can possibly 
pass Congress in its present shape. Comparing it with the 
tariff tax bills of the past, I have no hesitancy in saying that 
the Payne bill is the worst tax measure ever submitted to 
Congress; and if it became a law in its present form, it would 
inflict irreparable injury to most of our industries, paralyze 
our commerce, exterminate our export trade, compel us to 
issue bonds in time of peace to raise revenue for the support of 
the Government, and saddle on the poor man's breakfast table 
burdens beyond the comprehension of the ordinary intellect. 
It would start no new industries, create no additional revenue, 
furnish no avenues for greater employment of labor. All that 
can be claimed for it is that it will make the selfish beneficiaries 
of the protective-tariff system a little richer at the expense of 
all the consumers of the land. 

Sir, I trust the bill will be materially amended before it 
becomes a law. I have a number of important amendments 
I desire to offer, and I am confident if I am allowed to offer 
them they will be adopted. The question is, however, whether 
the members of the minority in this House will be permitted 
by the Speaker to submit amendments to perfect the bill. We 
are entitled to that right. I would like to know now if we 
shall have that right? I pause for an answer from some 
Member authorized to speak for the Republican leaders in 
this House. No one answers; and I am bound to assume that 
the Republican leaders will deny the Democrats the right to 
offer amendments to the Payne tax bill. What a farce it all 

79750—8200 



is, when we consider the framing and the making of the tax 
laws for the people ! [Applause on the Democratic side.] 

Mr. Chairman, the Payne tax bill will not curb the plunder 
of a single trust. It will not destroy monopoly. It will not 
add a dollar to the public revenue, and more revenue the 
Government must have. We have a deficit now in the ordinary 
current expenses of the Government of about $90,000,000. The 
appropriations for the next fiscal year are over a billion dol- 
lars. It is evident that the gentlemen who framed this Payne 
bill appreciated the danger that it would not produce sufficient 
revenue for the expenses of the Government, because they 
cleverly provided for the sale of $40,000,000 more of Panama 
bonds, and authorized the issue of $250,000,000 of interest- 
beariDg Treasury^certificates. Think of that in time of peace ! 
[Applause.] 

The framers of the Payne bill were shrewd enough in the 
interest of the few to provide for forced loans to defray the 
current disbursements of the Government rather than to lessen 
the burdens of the consumers by reducing prohibitive duties 
and thereby making the bill a sufficient revenue producer to 
defray the expenses of the Government. 

Sir, the Payne bill is not a revenue measure. It is a pro- 
tection bill pure and simple, and the highest tax bill ever sub- 
mitted to the American Congress. It will not open the ports 
of the world for an increased sale of our products; it will not 
raise more revenue; it will not help us get our share of the 
trade of the Orient or of Central and South America. As Mr. 
Blaine said on a similar occasion about another tariff bill, there 
is not a line in it that will open the markets of the world for 
another bushel of American wheat or another barrel of Ameri- 
can pork. [Applause.] 

The change of method in the Payne bill in arriving at values 
of consigned goods will, according to importers, increase the 
tax duty from 20 per cent to 40 per cent. The average ad 
valorem duty upon all dutiable imports will not be decreased, 
and the most oppressive schedules will be continued to burden 
the people for years to come. Take it all in all the Payne bill 
is the most idiotic attempt of the century to reform the rev- 
enue system of the Government, and accentuates more clearly 
than talk how the moral cancer of protection has interwoven 
itself in every fiber of the body politic. The consumers of our 
country are as heavily burdened at present by protection as the 
people of France were oppressed by taxation before the revo- 
lution, and the only hope of relief lies in the downfall of the 
Republican party. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 

Nearly all of the tax duties proposed to be levied on the con- 
sumers of the country by the Payne tariff bill are simply in 
the nature of a surrender of the taxing power of the people 
to favored special interests which the Government clothes with 
power to levy tribute on the great body of our consumers. 
To illustrate : We will import under the Payne tax bill probably 
about $500,000,000 worth of highly protected products which 
will pay an average ad valorem rate of duty of at least 
40 per cent, while the domestic producer, by reason of the 
prohibitive or restrictive duties of the bill, through the agency 
of the trusts, will raise to the duty line the selling price 
79750— 8200 



8 

of more thai* $10,000,000,000 worth of like domestic products 
to the consumers of this country. In other words, if the Payne 
tax hill should he enacted into law in its present shape, it 
will not only impose high duties upon $500,000,000 of imports, 
but in practical effect will permit a few thousand manu- 
facturers in the United States to make 90,000,000 consumers 
pay them a tribute of $4,000,000,000 in the enhanced price of their 
goods. France exempted her nobles in the eighteenth century 
from taxation, while the peasants and the middle classes 
defrayed the expenses of government. The Republicans go 
further, and delegate to a few thousand manufacturers the 
exclusive privilege of practically taxing for their own benefit 
every consumer in our land. What an injustice ! What an 
outrage! How long will the people submit* to the iniquity? 
[Applause.] 

Mr. Chairman, one of the most important, questions before 
the American people is honest tariff reform along the lines of a 
material reduction of the taxes on the necessaries of life, in or- 
der to cheapen the cost of living, and to make wealth as well as 
toil pay its just share of the burdens of government. I am in 
favor of a fair, a just, and an equitable revenue system that 
will support the Government, wisely and economically admin- 
istered, with equal justice to all and favoritism to none, having 
a jealous care for our farmers and our toilers. I believe in 
taxing the luxuries of life and exempting the necessaries of 
life in so far as possible ; and to this end, as I have said, I favor 
a graduated income tax along lines that will obviate any consti- 
tutional objection. 

Sir, I am in favor of genuine tariff reform in the interests of 
the consumers of the country and for the benefit of the wage- 
earners of the land. I am in favor of reducing the tariff taxes 
on the necessaries of life, and wherever they foster trusts or 
shelter monopolies. I would tax wealth more and toil less. I 
would reduce the tariff taxes on all goods, wares, and merchan- 
dise manufactured in this country and sold cheaper abroad 
than at home. I would revise the Dingley tariff schedules in a 
business way in the interests of all the people. The Payne bill 
violates every principle of democracy It is the highest pro- 
tection measure ever attempted to be written on our statute 
books. It is a bill ifor protection, for the sake of protection, 
and not for the sake of revenue. The Payne bill violates the 
cardinal principle of Jefferson, " Equal rights to all and special 
privileges to none." 

If the Payne bill becomes a law in its present shape it will 
burden beyond the calculation of the human intellect for years 
to come the struggling people of our country. During the past 
ten years the cost of living has increased nearly 50 per cent. 
The Payne bill will increase the cost of living about 25 per 
cent more. It taxes every necessary of life from the cradle to 
the grave. It is a bill to foster monopoly ; to make a few rich 
men a little more prosperous. It will create more trusts. It 
will take from those least able to pay and give it to those most 
able to pay. It robs the many for the benefit of the few, and 
does it all under the cloak of law. It is replete with legal 
trickery, full of concealed jokers, ambiguous in phraseology, and 
nearly every schedule contains a subtle discrimination incom- 
prehensible to the ordinary mind. 
79750—8200 



9 

T am opposed to these unjust discriminations. They must 
cease. Wealth as well as brawn must be taxed, and pay its 
just share of the burdens of the Government. I am in favor of 
true reform in tariff taxation — a revision that will do substan- 
tial justice to all interests concerned and not rob the many for 
the benefit of the few and saddle all the burdens of government 
on the poor man's back. 

The selfishness of the beneficiaries of the protected industries 
of the country who have waxed fat during the past quarter of a 
century through the unjust discriminations of Republican tariff 
policies was never better illustrated than in the Payne bill. 
Reading the bill in the light of these unjust exactions one is 
forcibly reminded of Goldsmith's line — " laws grind the poor 
and rich men rule the law." [Applause.] 

Mr. Chairman, for more than ten years the increasing cost of 
living, mounting higher and higher each succeeding year, has 
been the most immediate, the most pressing, and the most uni- 
versally observed fact about economic conditions in this country. 
During all this period, while the cost of the necessaries of life 
has been growing more and more oppressive, the promise has 
been held out by the Republicans that when the country got 
around to tariff revision something would be done to remedy 
these conditions. And what is the result? The mockery of the 
Payne bill — to make matters worse instead of better. The peo- 
ple are tired of being humbugged. They have lost confidence in 
the willingness of invested capital to divide up on an equitable 
basis with productive labor. Sad experience has taught them 
better. The tremendous development of the great trusts; the 
annual multiplication of multimillionaires; the heaping up of 
what Mr. Roosevelt so aptly called " swollen fortunes ; " the sys- 
tematic overcapitalization of all kinds of enterprises; the con- 
solidation of management and the centralization of ownership ; 
the advancing of prices, in too many cases out of all reason, of 
the necessaries of life — all these things have caused a widespread 
distrust of the long-heralded philanthropic spirit of the greedy 
beneficiaries of protection. 

Sir, I warn the makers of the Payne tariff-tax bill against 
the dangers of further unduly imposing on the patience and 
the credulity and the confidence of the American people. It is a 
fact which can not be successfully denied that the plain people 
of the country are greatly dissatisfied with present conditions, 
and with existing -tariff -tax laws. They have been hopelessly 
demanding relief for years. They are anxiously seeking to 
escape the tyranny of the selfish beneficiaries of Republican pro- 
tection. Staggering as they are under the burdens of class 
taxation, they are greatly disappointed with the provisions of 
the Payne tax bill. The Members of the House are now hear- 
ing from their constituents in no uncertain tones. The Payne 
bill is the merest pretense. The protests against it are coming 
in fast and furious from the corn lands of the West, from the 
cotton fields of the South, from the miners of the Intermountain 
States, from the people on the Pacific slope, and from the tax- 
payers and the consumers generally from one end of the country 
to the other, all crying out against the iniquities of the Payne 
bill, in which nearly every schedule is written for the few selfish 
beneficiaries and against the general welfare of all the people. 
79750—8200 



10 

What would the people of the country say if the Democrats 
had proposed such an iniquitous measure of class legislation? 
And what will the people dO with the Republican party that has 
promised so much relief, and now proposes to grant practically 
nothing, but on the contrary is striving to make the burdens 
of the people greater and heavier than they ever were before? 
As I have said, I do not believe the Payne tariff -tax bill can be 
enacted into law in its present shape. I hope for better things 
ere this session of Congress adjourns; but if it were, it would 
be the tax crime of all the ages, and would doom the Republican 
party in the next campaign to the most signal defeat in all our 
history, and bring about a Democratic Congress and a few 
years hence elect a Democratic President. [Applause on the 
Democratic side.] 

Mr. Chairman, the Republicans in season and out of season 
have boasted for years of the beneficent effects of the Dingley 
tax law, which is now the existing revenue tax statute, and 
which the Payne bill is intended to repeal and supersede. I 
have never been able to appreciate the beneficence of the Dingley 
law. I was a Member of Congress when it passed, and I am 
glad to say I voted against it. It is a protection measure from 
beginning to end, and the highest protection measure ever con- 
sidered by Congress, with the exception of the Payne tariff bill 
which we are now discussing. It has created more trusts and 
fostered more monopolies than any other agency in all the 
country. I deny the claim of the Republicans that the Dingley 
law brought prosperity to the people. The record of events 
proves the contrary. The Dingley law has benefited no one 
save the greedy beneficiaries of high protection. It has in- 
creased the cost of living nearly 50 per cent and saddled the 
burdens of government on those least able to pay. For more 
than a year after its enactment it paralyzed industrial America, 
threw men out of employment, and failed to produce enough 
revenue to administer the affairs of the Government. The so- 
called prosperity the country enjoyed from 1899 to 1908 was 
due to the Spanish-American war, and to the increase in the 
volume of the currency, and not to the Dingley law ; and the 
Democrats in Congress are entitled to much of the credit of 
enlarging the volume of currency and for precipitating the 
Spanish-American war and bringing about the liberation and 
the freedom of Cuba. The record of Congress proves it con- 
clusively. It can not be successfully denied. [Applause on 
the Democratic side.] 

Sir, it can not be claimed by anyone familiar with the facts 
that the country is now enjoying unparalleled prosperity, and 
the Dingley law is still on the statute books. We are just 
emerging from the shock of one of the greatest panics the 
country has ever experienced; a financial crisis which shook the 
very foundations of industrial America ; that caused a shrink- 
age of values of nearly 40 per cent ; that threw 5,000,000 toilers 
out of employment; that closed half the factories in the coun- 
try; a financial convulsion caused by the incompetency of Re- 
publican administration; and that started free bread lines and 
opened free soup houses in every large city in the country. 
The Republicans are responsible for the recent hard times; for 
the present financial depression ; for the millions of honest work- 
ingmen now tramping the country seeking employment; for the 
79750—8200 



11 

uncertainty and the stagnation of business; for the woe, and 
the want, and the misery, and the poverty that stalk the land; 
for the free bread lines and free soup houses; for the clouds 
that have darkened the home of nearly every family in the 
Republic with sadness and destitution. [Applause on the Demo- 
cratic side.] 

I ask the friends of the Dingley law if it is responsible for 
these conditions? There are now, I am reliably informed, over 
200,000 working people out of employment in the city of New 
York ; and, according to the testimony of John Mitchell, over 
5,000,000 of toilers are out of employment in the United States; 
and in the face of this tremendous indictment of misrule and 
incompetency of the party in power I would like to know what 
has become of the boasted prosperity of the Republicans, and the 
beneficent advantages of the policy of protection? Wonderful 
prosperity, indeed, when millions of honest workingmen are 
tramping the country from one end of it to the other seeking 
employment to earn an honest livelihood for themselves and 
their families ! If that is the kind of prosperity the Dingley 
law has given America, what shall we expect from the Payne 
tariff tax bill if it should become a law in its present shape — a 
bill which in every line and in every feature and in every sched- 
ule is infinitely worse than the Dingley law? 

Mr. Chairmau. it is ray opinion, based on careful study and long 
observation, that all raw material essential to our industries 
and to our manufacturers should be admitted free, to enable 
this country to compete successfully with the manufacturers of 
the world. I believe that all raw material imported into the 
United States should come in free and be on the free list. I 
know it will aid the manufacturer and benefit the wage-earner. 
It follows like the night the day that the more free raw 
material, the more will be imported; the more that is imported, 
the more will be manufactured; the more manufactured, the 
more mills and the more factories; the more factories and the 
more mills, the more men will be employed; the more men em- 
ployed, the more wages will be paid, and the more wages paid 
the happier the hearthside, the more prosperous the wage- 
earner, and the more contented the family. 

Sir, I want to reduce as much as possible the taxes on all 
agricultural implements in the interest of our trust-burdened 
farmers. Nearly all agricultural implements are sold by the 
American manufacturers cheaper abroad than at home. I 
favor putting lumber on the free list to lessen the cost of 
building American homes, and to conserve for future genera- 
tions our natural forests. I demand that coal be placed on the 
free list so that the coal trust shall have some competition and 
no longer be able to oppress the poor. I am in favor of putting 
hides, boots and shoes, and iron and steel on the free list. 
These things need no protection, and putting them on the free 
list will materially reduce their cost to the American con- 
sumer. I am in favor of placing on the free list, or reducing 
to a very large extent, the taxes on all kinds of gloves, hosiery, 
underwear, and clothes, and all cotton goods and woolen goods. 
All these wares are essential necessaries of life and they should 
be on the free list, or the tax on them should be very materially 
reduced. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 
79750—8200 



12 

In the schedule devoted to cotton goods and yarns there has 
been no material decrease in tax duties ; but there has been an 
increase of duty on mercerized fabrics, and an increase of duty 
"on gloves and hosiery so great as to amount to almost a pro- 
hibition of imports. The cruel wool and woollen schedules of 
the existing law remain unchanged except as to a slight reduc- 
tion in carpet wools. These high taxes on woolen goods of every 
description continue on an average of from 100 to 200 per cent; 
and window glass, now made in this country more cheaply 
than anywhere else in the world by the use of recently patented 
machinery controlled by a trust, remains still protected by 
duties of from SO per cent to 200 per cent. It is a crime against 
the poor to tax so high these necessaries of life. 

Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of a free breakfast table. [Ap- 
plause on the Democratic side.] I shall fight to the last to put 
tea and coffee back on the free list. It is an outrage to put a 
tax, as the Payne bill does, of 8 cents a pound on tea and 3 or 4 
cents a pound on coffee. These taxes are only imposed in time 
of war. The poor people of the country will never submit to the 
extortion in time of peace in order to benefit a few monopolistic 
tea and coffee importers in the city of New York, who will make 
millions of dollars by the imposition. [Applause.] 

Sir, if we are true to the best interests of the consumers of 
the country we will place tea, and coffee, and cocoa, and sugar, 
and spices, and sirups, and molasses, and rice, and all meats, 
and all breadstuffs, and all mineral waters, and fruits of every 
description, especially lemons, grapes, oranges, bananas, and 
pineapples, on the free list, or materially reduce the taxes on 
them. It is a crime against humanity to raise the taxes for 
the running expenses of the Government on these necessaries 
of the people. They should be free of customs taxes. They 
should be made as cheap as possible to all the people. I am 
especially opposed to the increased tariff taxes of the Payne 
bill on lemons, pineapples, and grapes. The adoption of the 
schedules on these articles without amendment would work 
hardship upon the consumers at large while diminishing the 
revenue of the Government. It is erroneous to class fruit of 
this description as luxuries. Thousands of persons eat fruit 
daily, and have come to regard it as one of the necessaries 
of life. Medical authorities agree that the vast increase in the 
consumption of fruit in recent years has greatly improved the 
public health. If the tariff duties be raised so high as to ex- 
clude the fruit products of foreign countries, an increase in the 
price of domestic-grown fruit will naturally follow, and many 
people will be deprived of a wholesome article of food to their 
discomfort and the detriment of the public health. I shall make 
every effort to amend the fruit schedules, and the bread and 
meat schedules, and the tea and coffee and sugar schedules, and 
the cotton goods and woolen goods schedules, and the breakfast- 
table schedules of the Payne bill all along the line, so as to 
protect the rights of the public. 

Mr. Chairman, the Payne tariff-tax bill is not only class-tax 
legislation of the worst kind, but it is sectional-tax legislation 
in the most iniquitous form. It lays the whole country under 
tribute to the manufacturers of New England. The framers of 
the bill have taken special care of the interests of the highly 
protected manufacturers of the New England States and of 

79750—8200 



13 

the State of Pennsylvania ; they have looked after special pro- 
tected interests here and there in a few other places; but take 
the bill all in all it does very little for the people of the country 
generally; very little for the people in the Southland; very 
little for the people in the corn lands of the Mississippi valley; 
very little for the people on the Pacific coast. In these sections 
are the great producing people of the country; they have inter- 
ests to protect, too ; they sell all they raise in the cheapest 
markets of the world, and in competition with all the producers 
of the earth ; and everything they are compelled to buy they 
must buy here in the dearest market in the world. [Applause 
on the Democratic side.] 

The South raises cotton, and the cotton is shipped to the 
manufacturers in New England, where the raw material is 
made into cotton fabrics, and sold to the people of the South 
at a profit of from 100 to 200 per cent. Is it any wonder 
the South is poor? Will it never learn? The people in the corn 
lands of the great West sell their wheat in competition with 
all the world, and everything they buy they must purchase in 
the most highly protected and the dearest market on the earth. 
Will they never heed the lesson? Cotton-goods statictics show 
that American cotton mills do not need any protection on the 
goods they are equipped to produce. In neutral markets they 
have so well been able to compete that their exports have rapidly 
grown, and in 1906 equaled $52,944,033. These mills make pre- 
cisely the class of goods which the Payne bill is designed to 
prohibit from importation. American mills do not sell their 
products on an ordinary profit basis, but adroitly fix their 
prices just below those at which similar goods can be imported. 

So, sir, the net result, if the Payne bill is permitted to become 
law, will be to greatly reduce revenues by prohibiting importa- 
tion, and to permit a few New England mills to manipulate 
prices at will, and to repeat their action of 1907, when they arbi- 
trarily raised prices more than 50 per cent, although there was 
no corresponding increase in wages or in the cost of production. 
The Payne bill will drive many importing houses in cotton goods 
out of business; work a hardship on 28,000 American retail 
cotton-goods merchants, and add an additional burden to the 
whole American people by increasing the cost of one of the 
chief necessaries of life. The people are united in the convic- 
tion that the tariff taxes on cotton and woolen goods of all 
kinds should be reduced rather than raised. 

President Taft said on December 16 last : " I believe that the 
way to stamp out trusts and monopolies is to avoid excessive rates 
which tempt monopolies." The Payne bill flies in the face of this 
statement. An average tariff of 20 per cent on cotton fabrics is 
ample to protect American manufacturers from any possible 
difference in cost of production ; and if the tax were so reduced 
its only effect would be to compel them to run their mills on a 
fair capitalization and charge reasonable profits to the consumers. 

Mr. Chairman, I hold in my hand the last and the best speech 
of William McKinley, delivered at the Pan-American Exposi- 
tion in Buffalo on September 5, 1901. In that remarkable 
address, with a farsightedness most prophetic in the light of 
present conditions, President McKinley said : 

" The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our 
trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars 
79750—8200 



14 

are unprofitable. A policy of good will and friendly trade rela- 
tions will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in har- 
mony with the spirit of the times ; measures of retaliation are 
not. If, perchance, some of our tariffs are no longer needed for 
a revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, 
why should they not be employed to extend and promote our 
markets abroad? Then, too, we have inadequate steamship 
service. New lines of steamers have already been put in com- 
mission between the Pacific ports of the United States and those 
on the western coast of Mexico and Central and South America. 
These should be followed up with direct steamship lines between 
the eastern coast of the United States and South American ports. 
One of the needs of the times is direct commercial lines from 
our vast fields of production to the fields of consumption that 
we have but barely touched. Next in advantage to having the 
thing to sell is to have the convenience to carry it to the buyer. 
We must encourage our merchant marine. We must have more 
ships. They must be under the American flag, built and manned 
and owned by Americans. These will not only be profitable in a 
commercial sense; they will be messengers of peace and amity 
wherever they go." 

Mr. Chairman, I concur in these eloquent words of the mar- 
tyred President — words that have done much to open the eyes 
of the American people to the selfishness of protection and to the 
iniquities of our shortsighted policy concerning our foreign com- 
merce and our deep-sea carrying trade. For years I have been 
advocating freer and more intimate trade relations with Canada 
on our north, and with Mexico, Central and South America on 
our south; but the members of Mr. McKinley's party in this 
House have turned to my entreaties a deaf ear. For years I 
have had pending in the Congress a bill to restore our merchant 
marine by a graduated system of tonnage taxes against foreign- 
built ships and in favor of American-built ships, but the Repub- 
lican leaders in Congress would never allow the bill to be con- 
sidered. 

Sir, there is not a line in the Payne bill to restore the Ameri- 
can merchant marine; and increase our revenue by taxing the 
carrying capacity of foreigmbuilt ships in our deep-sea trade; 
and it is a matter of much regret that the few Republicans in 
Congress who control its affairs and dictate legislation seek to 
remedy the situation by ship subsidies, and hence earnestly favor 
a ship-subsidy bill, which is another phase of protection, but no 
remedy at all, only a mere temporary makeshift to rob the many 
for the benefit of the few by taking money out of the pockets 
of the taxpayers generally and giving it to a few favored 
individuals. I am opposed to this subsidy policy. It never 
has succeeded and it never will succeed in accomplishing 
the purpose desired. All history proves it conclusively. Wher- 
ever and whenever it has been tried it has failed. Ship sub- 
sidies are subversive of the eternal principles of justice and 
equality and in violation of the spirit of our institutions. The 
taxpayers of our country, burdened now almost beyond endur- 
ance, are opposed to ship protection in the guise of ship subsides. 
They are opposed to any more graft bills. They say no private 
business interests should be aided by direct grants from the 
Treasury. They declare Congress has no power to subsidize 
79750—8200 



15 

any trade or any calling or any business, on land or sea, at the 
expense of the taxpayers of our country. 

Mr. Chairman, I urged the Ways and Means Committee when 
it was making up the Payne tariff tax bill to do something for 
the restoration of our shipbuilding industry ; to do something 
to recover our deep-sea trade along the lines of a graduated 
system of tonnage taxes on foreign ships, but I am sorry to say 
the committee has done absolutely nothing for these important 
industries. 

Sir, I am in favor of immediate action by Congress for the 
resumption of the shipping policy which prevailed under the 
first five Presidents of the Republic, and which brought forth 
and maintained the best merchant marine on the ocean with- 
out the cost of a cent to the American people. I denounce the 
Republican party for its willful neglect of our shipping in the 
foreign trade, having done nothing whatever for its revival 
since the civil war, except to connive at the passage of vicious 
subsidy bills, utterly useless for the object in view, and really 
in the interest of foreign nations. I am willing to go as far as 
any man in this country to legislate for the restoration of the 
American merchant marine to all its former glory and to se- 
cure for the American people their just share of the over-seas 
carrying trade of the world. I know, and every man who has 
investigated this subject knows, that our loss of deep-sea com- 
merce is due entirely to the iniquitous legislation and short- 
sighted policies of the Republicans in the National Legislature. 
If the American Congress would legislate intelligently regard- 
ing this subject, we could restore our merchant marine, increase 
our revenues, and secure nine-tenths of all our commerce on the 
high seas, exports and imports, without a ship subsidy and with- 
out taking a single dollar from the pockets of the taxpayers to 
give bounties, to favored shipowners. 

This whole subject is a very simple matter when reduced to 
an intelligent business proposition. We do not need to take 
a dollar out of the Treasury of the United States to revive 
our shipbuilding industries or restore our merchant marine. 
All we need to do is to legislate intelligently, repeal the 
restrictive laws against our deep-sea shipping now on our 
statute books, put in their place laws similar to the navigation 
laws that were enacted by the early statesmen of the country — 
laws that built up our merchant marine in those historic days — 
laws that placed our flag on the high seas and gave us nine- 
tenths of our entire over-seas carrying trade, and we would do 
it if it were not for the greed and the selfishness of the shipping 
trust. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 

'Mr. Chairman, the Republicans contend, when we demand an 
equitable revision of unjust tariff -tax discriminations; that 
they are all in the interest of labor; that this exorbitant 
protection is for the benefit of the wage-earner; but every 
intelligent man in the country knows the absurdity of the 
proposition. Labor comes in free from every country on earth 
except China and Japan, and successfully competes here with 
the skilled labor of the world. Labor receives no protection. 
Tariff taxation has nothing to do with the price of labor. 
Capital is not charitable. Capital is selfish. Capital buys 
labor, like everything else, as cheaply as it can. Wages are 
79750—8200 



.!:!?.RARY OF CONGRESS - 



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16 

regulated by the inexorable law of supply and demand. When- 
ever you find two employers looking for one workman, wages 
will be high, and whenever you find two workmen looking for 
one employer wages will be low. When the demand is greater 
than the supply wages go up, and when the supply is greater 
than the demand wages go down. Tariff taxes have little or 
nothing to do with the price of labor. In all prosperous com- 
munities labor is sought and not turned aside. 

Sir, I am now, always have been, and always will be, the 
friend of the American workingman ; my record for fifteen years 
in this House testifies to the fact. The American wage-earner 
is the greatest producer of real wealth in all our country. He 
is the best artisan and the best mechanic on earth. Of course, 
he gets more wages than the foreign workman. And he should, 
because he can do more work and better work and in less 
time than the foreigner, and it costs the American workman 
at least twice as much to live here as it does the foreign work- 
man to live in other countries. On an average during the past 
ten years the cost of living in the United States has increased 49 
per cent, and wages have remained, with few exceptions, about 
the same. The American wage-earner pays from twice to twenty 
times as much for the necessaries of life as the foreign wage- 
earner. In the end he can not save much. If the Amer- 
ican workman is a little better off than the foreign work- 
man he has no one to thank but himself, no agency to praise 
but his own ability, and no man to rely on for his improved 
condition but his loyal brothers in the trades unions of the 
country, which have done more than all other things com- 
bined to promote his progress, protect his interests, and bene- 
fit his welfare. [Applause.] 

Let the toilers of the land who earn their bread in the sweat 
of their face ponder on these facts. They can not be success- 
fully controverted. They are as true as the polar star and as 
fixed as the granite hills. The Republican doctrine that protec- 
tion to American industries benefits the toilers is all moonshine. 
If that were its object, the selfish beneficiaries of protection 
would whistle it down the wind, and as a political policy it 
would soon be abandoned and disappear forever, [Long and 
loud applause on the Democratic side.] 
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